Pithanotaria

Camp, C.L. · CC BY 4.0 · via GBIF. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- OtariidaePBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Otariidae
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia
Time the record covers
At least 4.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 5.333 Mya.
17 occurrences of Pithanotaria on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
17 occurrences- Miocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
4 formations
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The named rock units Pithanotaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Pithanotaria and its relatives
MioceneWhere Pithanotaria and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
170 taxa- Odobenidae7 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis5 sites
- Dusisiren jordani5 sites
- Imagotaria downsi5 sites
- Moris lompocana5 sites
- Dusisiren4 sites
- Mysticeti4 sites
- Otariidae4 sites
- Otodus megalodon4 sites
- Albireonidae3 sites
- Allodesmus3 sites
- Aves3 sites
- Desmostylus3 sites
- Herpetocetinae3 sites
- Mancallinae3 sites
- Messapicetus3 sites
- Panphyseteroidea3 sites
- Pelagornis orri3 sites
- Puffinus calhouni3 sites
- Teleostei3 sites
- Aethia2 sites
- Atocetus nasalis2 sites
- Balaenopteridae2 sites
- Carcharhinus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Pithanotaria, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
7 references- Middle and late Miocene marine mammal assemblages from the Monterey Formation of Orange County, California7
- Otarioid seals of the Neogene4
- Sirenian evolution in the North Pacific Ocean2
- A new record of the fur seal Pithanotaria starri (Mammalia: Otariidae) from the uppermost Miocene Purisima Formation of northern California reveals cryptic diversity in late Neogene pinniped assemblages from the eastern North Pacific1
- A late Miocene marine vertebrate assemblage from Southern California1
- New pinnipeds from the Miocene diatomaceous earth near Lompoc, California1
- A new fossil sirenian from Santa Barbara County, California1
Each of the 17 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Pithanotaria
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Camp, C.L.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pithanotaria was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itOtariidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kellogg 1925